Dear John Watson
by maybemoriartied
Summary: Following the events of the Reichenbach Fall, John and Sherlock's time is documented in letters to each other they can never send.
1. Sherlock Letter One

Dear John Watson,

I- I owe you an apology. I want to tell you that I'm sorry. Obviously, I doubt I'm going to have the opportunity to do this for a while - there's a reason you don't know where I am now, after all, a reason you believe me to be as dead as everyone says - but still, John... I'm sorry. I am so sorry, John Watson. And I want you to know that.

Naturally, of course, you never will - not for a while yet, at least. Maybe a couple of months, or at least that's what Mycroft predicted, and, much as it pains me to admit it, Mycroft has an annoying tendency to be right. (In the unlikely event that someone other than me reads this letter, I am now instructing you to destroy it before my brother reads the above.)

Talking of annoying tendencies, I wish you would tell Anderson to stop weeping like that every time my name is mentioned. Quite frankly, it's annoying, and makes him seem more ridiculous than ever: something I never believed to be possible.

Not that you ever will pass on this message to Anderson. To do that, you'd have to receive this letter and read its contents, which you won't, because I am not going to send it, simply because, on reading it you would believe one of two options: That this letter is from me and I am, in fact, alive, or that this letter is from someone impersonating me, which, the latter being the more plausible option, is the one you are bound to believe, so it would be pointless sending you this in any case.

Already, I expect you've received at least seven of these letters, all from impostors, all in terrible imitations of my handwriting and bearing my name in a badly forged signature at the bottom. I know for sure that three are from that young woman living two doors down - the one with the hair - she's been eager to change your bachelor status for months now. I trust I don't even have to mention that she's also incredibly, startlingly dull. Dull, dull, dull. Bland, boring.

Most likely case, you wouldn't even read this note anyway. You'd assume it was yet another fraud, probably heap it up with your pile of unwanted 'sorry for your loss' cards. I don't understand why someone would send a card like that, when they are far, far from sorry. To pretend they're grieving? Sgt Donovan's partying as I write.

However, there is still a slight chance that you'd pick the letter up, read it, and for some reason, believe it. Believe that I am alive. That, John Watson, is the worst thing that could possibly happen. In your shock you tell Mrs. Hudson, who, despite her many attributes, gossips frequently. She tells Lestrade, he tells his officers, the newspapers are informed, and then the whole world knows that, contrary to popular belief, I am very much alive. 'Fake It or Break It'. 'Fraud Genius Lies Again'. 'Lazarus Is No'. The press would have a field day. Not just a day. Weeks. Months!

I am alive. Far more than most of London, leading their mundane, everyday, little lives. To them, the most exciting thing that ever happened was that time old Mrs. Barnaby's kitten got stuck in a tree.

Excitement. Such a delicious word, brimming with potential. So many people prefer to pretend - live in a made up world of placid boredom instead of opening their eyes to the beauty beneath London's dull facade. Not you, John. You love the thrill of a crime as much as I do. Find it hard to survive without it.

Before I jumped - an angel tumbling down from Heaven - off the roof of Bart's, I lied to you. I want to set those lies straight, John, at least in my own mind. My phone call wasn't my 'note'. This is. This is my own, private 'note', apologising to you, and explaining why I can't let you know I'm alive.

I will miss you, John Watson.

At least for now, this is my goodbye.

Sherlock Holmes


	2. John Letter One

Sherlock -

I feel so... So stupid writing this. Trust me, I don't want to, not one bit. My therapist said that doing this - scrawling fragile, flung together words onto scratty, lined paper - would be good for me. I can't disagree more. Apparently, this is going to help me remember you as you were: hold onto every detail about - all the stuff that made you you that I can feel myself forgetting already. Though, according to everyone - the newspapers, the police, everyone - everything I thought I knew about you was all lies anyway.

Lies. All of it.

Thanks, Sherlock. Thanks a bloody bunch for this. I'm not even sure if I want to remember you anymore. If you never came into my life in the first place - "Afghanistan or Iraq?" - then I'd never be like I am now. You know... Broken. Dead inside. As dead as you. I wouldn't be upset about the death of a genius. I'd probably have read about it in the papers this morning and thought 'poor guy', and then moved on with my life - or as much of a life as I had, before you came into it.

I just don't think I can move on any more, Sherlock. You were too much a part of me - you were my friend, my best friend, and now you're gone, and I'm not sure I want a life without you in it, centre stage. Without you, I'm nothing. I have nothing to blog about - my life is ordinary. Less than ordinary. At least ordinary people are happy, and I'm so far from that. The only thing that made me not ordinary before, was you - the high functioning sociopath who changed everything.

Martha - that's my therapist - said that from the way I described you, you were actually nothing like a sociopath. She said you had too much heart, were far too compassionate. A sociopath would never have said example A, or done example C in a gesture of goodwill. Not that you ever had many gestures of goodwill, but whatever. Apparently you were more likely to be autistic.

You were wrong, Sherlock, at least about something. There were times when I used to think it was seriosuly _impossible _for you to be wrong - it was more likely that I became King or something. It proves you were human.

I never used to think of you as human. I knew you were, obviously... But until you... I always thought you were slightly apart from the rest of us lowly people, sent to this earth for some kind of greater purpose. It was an honour to be your friend, whether you were fake, or not. At the time it seemed real, and it seems real now.

I just thought you should know. Not that you will, because you're dead, and I'm pretending to write to you as if you're alive, except you're not. I keep forgetting, and then remembering again. Keep forgetting the pain, and then wincing as it all comes flooding back.

I'm going to stop writing now. This is awkward, and horrible, and I hate the way I'm writing to you as if you'll read this, as if you'll reply to it and come back to me - as if you weren't dead, weren't gone from my life forever.

I'm going to miss you, Sherlock Holmes.

\- John


	3. Sherlock Letter Two

p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 15px 0px 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"Dear John Watson/span/p  
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 15px 0px 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"I thought I'd never write to you again. This strange, ghostly version of you that I pretend I'm sending these letters to when I fold them up and never look at them again. I don't have much time to write these days, anyway. Mycroft has a ridiculous plan that is probably going to work just as well as all his other plans seem to. /span/p  
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 15px 0px 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"I shouldn't be writing to you now. If Mycroft were here, he'd tell me not to. It's probably unhealthy - these sorts of things often are. I feel like a teenage girl huddled over her diary; writing to some ridiculous crush with big blue eyes and a stupid complexion. /span/p  
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 15px 0px 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"Sentiment is man's downfall, and I would be a foolish man if I ever scrawled my name over someone's heart. Thinking more clearly, I wouldn't be able to scrawl my name even if I wanted to, Mrs Hudson moves my pens around so much. /span/p  
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 15px 0px 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"I wonder if you miss me? I wonder if you hate me? Do you hate me, John? Do you call me a fake and call yourself deceived? If you were sensible, you'd have got new friends by now. If you were a sensible man, you'd be laughing at my suicide over a pint. /span/p  
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 15px 0px 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 15px 0px 0px;"You were never a sensible man, John Watson. It's what made me trust /spanyspan style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 15px 0px 0px;"ou. /span/span/p  
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 15px 0px 0px;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 15px 0px 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"Sensible men are all imbeciles and I hate them even more than I hate fools./span/span/p  
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 15px 0px 0px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"- SH /span/p 


End file.
